HC acquits man sentenced to life imprisonment by lower court

The Jharkhand High Court has acquitted a man, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Pakur court in 2011 in connection with a two decades-old murder case.

A division bench of justices S Chandrasekhar and Ratnakar Bhengra acquitted Chunda Murmu on Wednesday, saying that the lower court had not focussed on the facts of the case.

Murmu had moved the high court after the lower court sentenced him to life imprisonment in December 2011 in connection with the murder of one Mohanty Hembram in Pakur district in 1998.

During the hearing, Murmu's lawyer Aparajita Bharadwaj told the bench that the statements of Hembram's wife, who was made a witness in the case, were contradictory and the lower court had sentenced the convict on the basis of her statements, while those of the investigating officer and her brother-in-law, Chhote Hembram, were not recorded.

She also told the court that the lower court had not given importance to the other evidence in the case, following which the high court acquitted Murmu.

Bharadwaj said Hembram's wife had lodged an FIR at the Pakuria police station, alleging that on August 25, 1998, Murmu had beaten up her husband with a stick, leading to his death.